"At some point, it becomes to difficult to pretend that all of these things are organic, such as all governments agreeing to shut down their countries and enforce the same 'guidelines' unilaterally. "

Having worked in a govt this is absolutly what I think.  They had specific plans for pandemics (which I worked on).  When they were clearly not going to fly they'll have looked around for any alternative, and there's none better than doing what everyone else was doing.

They were even explicit about this - eg saying we had to lock down because the rest of Europe was locking down.  And they were right.  It's herd logic.

The only thing that has changed to make covid etc far worse than previous panics is that the herd is now supercharged by phones.  The waves of fear and anger are hugely more powerful.